Will Guy Ritchie’s ‘Young Sherlock Holmes’ Series Help Us Forget About ‘Sherlock Holmes 3’?

Sherlock Holmes 3 seems to have languished in development hell. Though the films led by Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law certainly had more to give, it seems director Guy Ritchie now has his sights set on a different Sherlock Holmes project altogether: Young Sherlock Holmes.

Amazon Prime Video has officially ordered a series based on Andrew Lane’s Young Sherlock Holmes novels. The show, which is set to be directed and produced by Guy Ritchie—who recently found streaming success with Netflix’s The Gentleman—will consist of eight episodes. Coincidentally, there are currently eight published Young Sherlock Holmes novels, each of which sees a teenage Sherlock wrapped up in another case. However, the official synopsis implies that this first season of Young Sherlock Holmes will see the fledgling detective unravel one major, overarching mystery:

“… Sherlock Holmes is disgraced, raw, unfiltered, and unformed, when he finds himself caught up in a murder mystery at Oxford University which threatens his freedom. Diving into his first-ever case with a wild lack of discipline, Sherlock manages to unravel a globe-trotting conspiracy that will change his life forever.”

via Variety

So, who will be bringing us their version of the world’s most famous detective next? Turns out, Guy Ritchie is teaming up with an actor he’s already worked with before. Hero Fiennes Tiffin, who recently starred in Ritchie’s The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare and is well-known for leading the After franchise, will be taking on the titular role in Prime Video’s upcoming show. Though this version of the character will still be significantly younger than other on-screen adaptations, they’ve clearly aged up the version from the source material. In the first of Lane’s Young Sherlock novels, the world-famous detective is merely 14 years old.

According to Variety, however, Tiffin’s version of Sherlock will be 19 years old instead (at the time of writing, Tiffin is 26). How closely Ritchie will be sticking to Andrew Lane’s books remains to be seen, though the character’s older age will most likely change the way he approaches his upcoming cases significantly. Guy Ritchie, of course, is well-known for his darkly comical and violent stories, which wouldn’t work with a 14-year-old character.

Further casting for the series has yet to be confirmed, and there is no news of a release window yet, either. Depending on when the series starts production, there’s a good chance we’ll be waiting a while for Guy Ritchie’s take on a young Sherlock Holmes.